THE PHILIPPINE 
Journal of Science 
C. Botany 
Yol. IV APRIL, 1909 No. 1 
THE FERNS OF THE MALAY-ASI ATIC REGION. PART 1. 
By Edwin Bingham Copeland. 
(From the Bureau of Education. Manila. I'. /.) 
The fern flora of the Malay Archipelago is the richest in the world, 
in species, in genera, and in families. In recent geological times this 
region has evidently been a center for the diffusion of species, in every 
direction in which no impassable barriers prevent it. The study of this 
flora has therefore a very special bionomic interest; but a thorough 
floristic study is an indispensable prerequisite to any valuable bionomic 
work. I have devoted a number of years to this field, and am presenting 
this “flora” in the expectation that it will make this work easier for others. 
In this Part I, including all familes except Tlymenophyllaceac and Poly- 
podiaceae, the genera are almost all so striking in appearance that the 
photograph of one species in each will permit their immediate recogni- 
tion by a beginner. However, the subjects for the photographs have 
been chosen from species the illustration of which will lie useful to special- 
ists in pteridology. 
The greater part of the material used in this work is in the herbarium 
of the writer and in that of the Bureau of Science, in Manila. The 
plants in these families in the Hongkong herbarium were kindly loaned 
by the Director of that institution, Mr. S. T. Dunn ; and the veteran 
missionary and botanist, Urbain Faurie, of Aomori, Japan, has helped 
me with his complete material in the same families. Grateful acknowl- 
edgment is made to these gentlemen. 
While this part is in press, the large volume “Malayan Ferns” by 
Captain C. E. W. K. van Alderwerelt van Roseburg came to hand. I am 
fortunately still able to make such corrections in this paper as do not 
break into paragraphs, and can therefore use van Alderwerelt’s previously 
unpublished information as to the range of various species. 
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